Disability and Film, Why Can’t Hollywood Seem to Get It Right?
Let’s begin with The Witches (2020) Well... The latest Witches movie has a brilliant cast of actresses and actors- there’s no doubt about it. Octavia Spencer played the Grandmother spectacularly, both witty and powerful! The downfall for the movie is although the acting was brilliant, there wasn’t much thought into The Witches themselves. Or perhaps maybe too much thought!
Anne Hathaway who plays the Grand High Witch, throughout the film is portrayed to have a limb abnormality, also known as ectrodactyly. Although Hathaway and Warner Brothers have since apologised. Is this enough? In the case of Witches, it wasn’t even in the book. It was in bad taste and offensive, to say the least.
I believe Warner Brothers did not take into consideration the disabled community when adding a rare genetic condition as what was supposed to be a scare-factor, which instead was an extremely offensive portrayal. What are you doing Hollywood? You took a perfect film and re-made it into something offensive and objectionable.
Moving on to Sia’s new film. Music. Music is about a girl named Zu, An ex drug dealer and has become sober, when she finds herself as a sole guardian to her teenage minor, autistic half sister, Music.
What is the problem with this? Well, Sia has chosen to push aside neurodivergent actors by casting a neurotypical actor as the lead role. I believe in this case; a terrible decision was made to cast Maddie Ziegler as the lead role, especially when nothing was stopping Sia casting a neurodivergent actress.
How awesome would that have been? An autistic, female role, played by an autistic, female actress. It would have been a true representation, allowing others to relate to that role.
Sia’s backlash to her fans who pointed out their disappointment to her new film has also been disappointing. One twitter reply to a fan even going as far to say ‘maybe you’re just a bad actor’ when someone said they were autistic and an actor, telling Sia her reasons for not casting a neurodivergent actor were ‘excuses’.
Although stories of people with disabilities are hitting the big screens, how many of these actors/actresses playing the roles, have disabilities themselves? It is not just those two films that I mentioned, the list goes on... My Left Foot, The Theory of Everything, Breathe, Stronger…
We know that when Hollywood really cares, they can get it right. The 2019 film The Peanut Butter Falcon cast Zack Gottsagen in one of the lead roles- an actor with downs playing- incredibly successfully- a character with downs. The film was a moving and honest portrayal, and lifted the bar so high that when films like Music and Witches are released a year later, there is absolutely no excuse.
This isn’t about being politically correct, it’s about allowing the viewers to relate to the film and characters in the film. As humans, I do not deny that we are learning constantly every day. Stop allowing people without disabilities, playing people with disabilities in film. Hollywood, learn from your offensive mistakes. A disability is not an evil trait, and disabled people can represent themselves.
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Written by Hallie Fletcher
